graphic design vs. web design

A couple of years ago, I started doing a booklog, and it was quite fun. I am bringing it back soon. I'm pretty much finished, the only problem I'm having is the same problem I had with this website, which is that I can't get my stylesheets to look right in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. And yeah, I know there are other browsers like Opera and such, but if I thought about those, my head would probably explode. The rumor is that the new IE browser will correctly interpret stylesheets, but it's not out yet, and it'll be years before use of it will be widespread.

I recently had a project that I had to print out for one of my graphic design classes. I'm NOT a graphic designer, but I take graphic design classes so that I can apply certain aspects to web design. Plus, I like to fool around with Photoshop more than any normal person should. Anyway, I had to print out this movie poster, and I realized that graphic design is a huge pain in the ass. I hate printing stuff out, and I usually end up ruining stuff when I'm trying to mount it, or when I'm hunched over the desk with an X-acto knife trying to cut something out. My poster had a big glue thumbprint on it, which I tried to rub off, but I just made it worse. I got points off for that.

What's my point? Well, with web design there are all sorts of annoying things to worry about, like what browser the person is using, and sometimes something will look perfect on your monitor, but on someone else's monitor, it'll look like shit, because all monitors are different. Graphic designers don't have to worry about this shit, but they have their own annoying shit to worry about, and quite honestly, I don't have the patience to do half the stuff they do on a regular basis. Package design? You mean I have to painstakingly cut out stuff with an X-acto knife and hope I don't slice my finger off? No thanks. I'll stick to staring at hundreds of lines of code, trying desperately to find one tiny typo.

Graphic designers, my hat's off to you.